THE POSITIVE PRIME
(A Book in Poetry)
Jeffrey Perry
Copyright 2009 Jeffrey Perry
This effort in poetry is dedicated to my grandfathers,
Calvin "Mack" Edwards, and G.A. Perry (a poet himself);
They are My Gemini spirits."
Acknowledgements:
Thanks to Ann Lennon for her supporting work in this project.
Thanks to Marty Cohen for the photos that he took of me
Thanks to Dexter Perry for the pictures in the Photo Gallery
Thanks to Dr. Thomas Edwards and Carolyn Green for their sound advice (and as my uncle and my aunt.)
And thanks to all my family, my friends, co-workers and all those who have given their opened-ended support!
And a special thanks to Esther B. Perry, my mother, and my brothers; Dexter, Zeggory and Stuart there is no more I can say&, just read it.
(William Oba Perry, my father. Rest in Peace)
And by the grace of God!
THE POSITIVE PRIME
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1- I LOVE AMERICA
1. Still Here - Millions Strong
2. The Positive Prime
3. One Cell at a Time (Sounds like prison)
4. Soul
5. Pineapple Upside-Down Cake (The poem)
6. Blood is Thicker than Time
7. I Love America
8. Gladio (Part 1 & 2)
9. The Impossible
10. Honestly
11. Ode to Will
12. Junkies
13. The Big "O"
14. Martin
15. Rap Music
16. I Don't Know No Black People!
17. to Black Women
18. Street Change
19. Blacausion
CHAPTER 2 - THE ROOM WITHOUT A WALL
1. My Gift
2. Room without a Wall
3. Lust
4. My Misfortune
5. Land
6. Intelligence
7. Anger
8. Beyond Good and Evil (Part 2) -Balance
9. Respect
10. Rain
11. I Give to Me Love
12. The Gift
13. Special Love
14. Hopes
15. Beyond Good and Evil (Part 1) Faith
16. Good to Be Near
CHAPTER 3 - UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE
1. The Ghost with the Most
2. Money
3. Got It Wrong!
4. Gemini Spirit
5. Emptiness
6. Humanity
7. Faith and Truth
8. The Promise
9. The Truth
10. The Calling
11. Self - ID
12. Understanding the Universe
13. Endless Love
14. Talent
15. You Are What You Eat
16. The Cream In - Between
17. Devil and Angel
18. What You Going To Do?
CHAPTER 4 - WORD ON THE STREET
1. I Know What They Pull!
2. New York City Winter
3. Poets and Prophets
4. Some Are Too Fat...
5. to Bill Gates
6. Our Mind's Hearts
7. It's Been a While!
8. My thoughts on 9/11
9. Words
Chapter 1-
I LOVE AMERICA.
STILL HERE MILLIONS STRONG
It seems like forever and a day
That we have been on American soil
From Captive people men and women from African soil
Transported to this land from far away
Inhumane conditions to have to produce free toil
And how the blood does boil!
Weve come through it all with just our song
From the beginning still here Millions Strong
History does not want to even record our plight
We remain a legendary soul in humanitys sight
From behind the mask (of darkness)
We waged the fight
Call it faith or truth
We have the might
To endure times challenge
Because we know what is right
Although in the eyes of Dr. King
(He) was not thinking of blink-blink
And Dr. Dubois in his mind could not have
Imagined being a professional athlete making millions
It is not written in a fairy tale
That we would be killed and sent to jail
Or eat at McDonald until our ankles swell
From rages to riches we are here to tell
It has not been the best of times
Crying for civil rights all the damn time
To cry for freedom in the land of the free
You know it would seem to me
That in America theres nothing free
Were saying that we are just like everybody else
We like no one but ourselves
And why by the grace of GOD should I really care
How somebody else wear their hair
It is just there on their head
In blonde, black, brown and red
But I am so proud of the people with skin like mine
Especially the ones with flat noses, big lips and big behinds
Because these are my people you see
Doing exactly the same as me
I think we all live as one on a spiritual plane&
But mostly because we shared a slaves name
But now the day has come
To let you know where were coming from
We come a long way baby
From a slave to a designated minority
(When will it ever end?)_
THE POSITIVE PRIME
When looking at the primal man
The first roots of Africa
Then correlate that to the world of Eden
They are beginnings in simplicity
Of a primal innocence
Also one of goodness
Beyond our understanding
Who is the Father of invention?
And is necessity his mother?
When we say yes to one thing
Then there is a start.
What we will agree on is a fact
Like the Sun came up today
There that is a primal science
Our religion says
That the sun was always that way
Our science is like
When Hansel and Gretel left breadcrumbs behind
To remember their path
Because they could not remember
The Woods on their own
Returning to our humble beginnings
In our times intelligence
(Time is a man-made thing)
We have reached the moon, the Sun and the mountaintop.
We complete a day!
If we fish a nearby lake
Where we fished yesterday
Will the world not be better for that?
(A bird in the hand is better than two or three in a bush or the bushes?)
Is it fear that scares us to death
Or the actual war that is waged
If we knew them
Would we have killed first?
Can you know intelligence?
Before it happens?
If my black skin is less than
Then am I the only one who knows
How to count?
Then is one the only number?
When the idea of equality
Becomes popular again, yet I
Still do not count as one.
I am the mathematical genius
Who believes that one plus one has always just been two,
Not one and a half,
-Nor one and four-fifths.-
When a tree falls in the forest
And no one is there
Does it still make a sound?
Does my history still exist?
Even if I do not write it down?
Ye of little faith!
Yes! To both, if
You believe in sound or history!
If I am first, last or never-
I still exist-
Just look at the black skin!
(The Positive Prime)
ONE CELL AT A TIME
(Sounds like prison)
I could explode sometimes,
When I just see
Or look and see,
Where people are,
What people be doing
And saying and acting.
Looking at the big picture,
As a black male,
I'd be in jail
Or I will have to see,
-The View (Like it is!)
One cell at a time
Brother, I will not judge you
Least I judge myself.
I can't be my judge-
Ironic that I can't
Judge you, - be my own judge.
So I must be looking at you,
One cell at a time
Then there is whitey
Lord knows all-
I just exploded!
Into a million-billion cells
And then I also knew
That it was by design,
My brother is in one cell
Doing time
But even the White race-
I can't be the judge!
"I am not white."
As much as I hated myself
Still I can't but turn the other
Cheek,
Not to be meek
"I am Black!"
Maybe I am more humane
I become color blind
So, you too!-
I see one cell at a time.
To my sisters-
I did not ask you for anything,
It is there all the time.
If whitey is the punk,
Then who am I?
And vice versa,
Who is he? (And what is he to you?)
I don't- didn't want to go there-
Jail, hell or otherwise!
We must learn to see each
Other one cell,
One body,
One mind,
Taking one breath
At a time
To tell the truth
(One cell at a time) (Sounds like prison)
Personally,
I just don't want
All you idiots
To get in my way-
From me, enjoying my life
Here.
One damn cell at a time!
SOUL
The sound of soul
The music in me
It is because I am black people.
There is a spirit about it,
That moves my feet
That makes the beat.
From Africa it came
I am today one and the same.
If the whites know so much!
Then I felt so much!
Its my soul, my movement
My way! (Lets not lie.)
If soul is hate
I have it.
If white is right
Then might is right
If Darwin is cool
Then I am the fool
Yes! I am.
It is not a dance I dance
And it is not mine
It is Darwins
(My beat still is an Africa beat.)
My soul is owned
To things indigenous
To this world and all
It is not mine but a truth
To all things
Like real numbers in math.
Like hurt feelings-
Life is real with or without
Value
We each count!
This is the song of my soul
The knowledge of my heart,
I mean my intelligence!
My soul music is air
Like the breath of life that
One day we all will live.
PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
(THE POEM)
You must come visit me someday,
As you gaze to Mars and beyond.
Is it I did not care if you were out there?
And did I know that you would come?
Am I the alien being?
You look away from
Or is it that I do not care
That you are alien to me?
Does it mean much?
Does it mean that much?
That you would pay Heaven and Earth?
Not to see me
And see Aliens?
I think I was better off
Seeing dead people
And evil spirits,
Maybe I did see you coming!!
BLOOD IS THICKER THAN TIME
Will I still call you brother? (or sister)
In another four hundred years?
Will we be as a people, my peeps?
Or will you be just a friend?
But I will always love you
Forever, simply because of
That day when we were sold away
Into slavery so long ago,
But I still remember:
That your mother was my mother
Although we were pulled apart
You will always be my brother
Or sister, or father or aunt, or cousin
Or uncle, or whatever,
Even mother!
But my brother
I will only know your name
To be slave!
I LOVE AMERICA
I love America,
It is the country
Where my mother and father were born
I love your blue sky.
I love your sport;
I root for the home team.
It is the land under my feet,
It is the government inspected meat,
It is the opportunity to have (opportunity),
It is the community in my community!
It is my village!
I love America
Because it will carry me on its back
And because I can pay you back!
You own me and I own you.
In the end,
We will know this is true.
I will one day respect you too!
And you will one day respect me!
And you will have to love me true!
I love America!
GLADIO
(Part One)
I never understood why-
He never seemed to care
About what his life had become,
That he was just a simple man.
He never seemed to try
Just had a little joke for everything,
Like most us black folk!
Can you define, describe, or
Understand why?
It is so that we are Children of God?
Gladio could be everybody
And no one at the same time
He taught me to not to care
Just dare them to be beautiful,
To be smart
To fall off that wagon, (of the world)
Just because
Damn! God said he could
(Or nobody else could say any different!)
So Gladio could tumble
Down the long road
To nowhere,
Being no body
(Hey God still loves you!)
So be it the poet
Famous or not,
A poet he is.
GLADIO
(Part Two)
He was my grandfather.
He is my lesson learned
My tumbles and falls-
My emotions
(That is all it is!)
Poetry is just the true
Emotion
Purer than pure,
Unreachable because
It is here, there, even everywhere!
But I need not pay a price
I need not cry or hunger
For his name sake
We are not stupid.
No my lesson is everything
You do I can do better
Your servant is your master!
Listen!
Was not the Kings court jester- the fool?
Entertainment for the day!
Today arent entertainers richer
Than, the leaders?
So who are the fools now?
I do not need the story
To write a poem
Because you do not listen anyway
-Waste not the pen that is mightier than the sword!-
(SWORD is fighting words)
Even the poem that I never
Wrote is saying more
Since you can not see it!
Understood!
THE IMPOSSIBLE
We no longer debate,
We talk.
We do not plan anymore
We carry it out.
We do not move by faith
We have direction.
A man is not the lead
A people have the spirit
The dream is not deferred,
But it was impossible.
We first had to dream.
It will only be half the people
That starts a war
And the other half joins in.
Half the fight
Is to be at war -
Half a right,
Does make it wrong!
HONESTLY
And remember that honesty
Has no end.
Do not speak with a forked-tongue
Because he can never say a word
That is true.
Honesty has always been
Our ability not to lie
To ourselves
And make a liar out of
Others,
It is not wrong to tell a lie
But it is wrong to be a liar.
Honesty has many dimensions
Points of view!
If we can tell a lie
We can also UN-tell it,
Right a wrong.
But a liar never gets to tell the truth
And becomes dishonest
There is no honor among thieves,
Except the bond of friendship
(That we steal together)
Is a team effort!
So! Be careful who you do lie with.
ODE TO WILL